Chemistry

Ted Miller, senior manager of energy storage at Ford Motor Co., recently stated:“We don’t see another way to get there without solid-state technology.” The statement is in regard to more powerful batteries for electric vehicles.Mr. Miller goes on clarifying: “What I can’t predict right now is who is going to commercialize it.”

So what is a solid state battery and why is it so difficult to commercialize?

First, let’s clarify some misconceptions.

A polymer battery, known as a LiPo, is a lithium-ion battery.

A cylindrical battery, like an 18650 cell (used in the early Tesla models) is also a lithium-ion battery.

A prismatic battery is too a lithium-ion battery with a hard shell.

And so is a solid-state battery. It involves newer manufacturing processes, but it is a lithium-ion battery.

All of these variances of lithium-ion batteries have one physical principle in common: the lithium ions contribute to storing the electrical energy.

Simplistically, a lithium-ion battery operates with lithium ions shuffling back and forth between two electrical layers: an anode and a cathode. When the ions are at the cathode, the battery is discharged. When they move to the anode, then the battery is charged. The cathode and anode are called electrodes.

The motion of the ions between these two electrodes is facilitated by an intermediate medium called electrolyte. It is a solution that is electrically conductive: it permits ions to travel through it with little impediment. One key property is called conductivity: it is a scientific measure of the ease at which ions can travel through the electrolyte. High conductivity means the ions can travel easily and quickly. Low means the opposite.

In a lithium-ion battery, the two electrodes are immersed in an electrolyte solution. Today’s batteries use a liquid or gel-like electrolyte.Battery manufacturers go to great lengths to formulate unique electrolytes for their batteries. The formulations do have an impact on many of the battery’s specifications, in particular cycle life (the number of times a battery can be charged and discharged).

In a solid-state battery, the liquid or gel electrolyte disappears. It is instead replaced by a “solid-state” layer sandwiched between the two electrodes. “Solid-state” means this layer is not a liquid, but a physical solid. The material can consist of a ceramic, glass, or even a plastic-like polymer, or some type of mixture of all three.

So why use a solid electrolyte? There are two major reasons. First, a battery with solid electrolyte occupies a lot less space than one with liquid electrolyte. That means one can pack more energy in the same volume. Consequently, energy density — an important metric of batteries — goes up.

The second reason is safety. Liquid or gel electrolytes are more prone to catching fire than a solid electrolyte.

Traditionally, the primary challenge with solid electrolytes is poor conductivity especially at room temperature (25 °C or 77 °F). A liquid or gel electrolyte has a conductivity that is about 1,000 times better than that of solid electrolyte. In other words, solid electrolytes exhibit a far higher resistance to the flow of lithium ions. This results in several performance challenges, starting with poorer cycle life and inability to charge at fast rates.

Some companies proposed operating their solid-state batteries at elevated temperatures (> 80 °C) to improve conductivity. But this is not practical under most use scenarios.

Therefore the quest for solid electrolyte materials continues to be a much active field of exploration and discovery. There is confidence in the industry better materials will be discovered, yet, we really can’t predict when a breakthrough will be widely adopted.

Another challenging aspect is the surface stability and manufacturability of solid electrolytes.Unlike liquid solutions, glass and ceramic electrolytes are not deformable. They must be assembled with the two electrodes using high external pressure, equivalent to about 1,000 atmospheres. It becomes questionable whether existing battery manufacturing factories can be retooled for this purpose. If not, the economics of solid-state batteries will undoubtedly suffer as is the present case.

In a nutshell, there is much promise in breakthrough material innovations to make solid-state batteries a reality. Yet, many challenges remain ahead. I personally do not expect to see solid-state batteries in commercial scale for several years to come. We will continue to see evolutionary progress with traditional lithium-ion batteries especially as prices continue to decline.

But in all cases, solid-state batteries are subject to the same physical principles that govern traditional lithium-ion batteries. Consequently, many of the battery management solutions developed for traditional lithium-ion batteries will evolve and continue to apply. And that is good news.

School started this week for most of us so it is time to resume the posts. Today’s post continues with insight into the subtleties of the lithium-ion battery. It is surprising how a simple device, with only two contacts, can be so intriguing and complex.

As summer nears to an end, several smartphone makers ready their newest and greatest devices for launch. Samsung announces their Note 8 on 23 August. LG is announcing their flagship V30 a week later. And we are not forgetting Apple as they ready their newest iPhones in September.

All of these new devices will come with amazingly beautiful and large displays, top-of-the-line processors and of course, batteries to power them. At an expected price point in excess of $700, consumers are keeping their smartphones for two or even three years. So will their batteries last that long?

We will examine here one of the parameters that impact the longevity of the battery…and give you some tidbits on what you can do to keep your battery fresh for longer than average. Today’s post is on voltage. Voltage is the alt-nature to state-of-charge (SOC). This is very much the principle of operation of the fuel gauge — how you get to read at the top of your screen the percentage of remaining battery life.

When I say voltage, I mean the maximum voltage that the battery will see. It also determines the maximum available capacity in mAh. Look at the label of a battery and you will observe a maximum voltage during charge and maximum capacity for that battery. Most state-of-the-art batteries operate at a maximum voltage around 4.35 V or 4.4 V. This is also the voltage that corresponds to a 100% battery reading.

If you choose to charge your smartphone to a lesser percentage, say to only 90%, then the battery voltage stops at a lower value. For a battery that is rated 4.35 V, 100% corresponds to 4.35 V. At 95%, the voltage is 4.30 V. And at 90%, the voltage is 4.25 V. These are small differences in voltage values, but significant differences in capacity.

Let’s take a particular example with a battery having a maximum capacity of 3,100 mAh at 4.35 V. Therefore, at 4.25 V, the maximum available capacity becomes a little over 2,800 mAh.

You are now wondering: why would anyone want to do that?

The answer is: Battery longevity. If you don’t have the best battery, or your smartphone manufacturer is not putting the best battery management intelligence on your device, then you ought to be very concerned whether your battery will last you more than one year. Battery issues after 6 months or one year are a significant cause for warranty returns.

Let’s back it up with some measured data.

The following chart shows the maximum available capacity for a battery rated at 3,100 mAh at 4.35 V. At this voltage, this battery will only last about 400 cycles, or about a year. You will complain about the loss of use much before that. The brown line shows that your battery has lost 250 mAh of capacity after 6 months….that’s about 2 hours of use time. Ouch!

Now, let’s look at the case where the smartphone is charged to only 95%. That is a maximum available capacity of 3,000 mAh instead of 3,100 mAh. Now follow the dark green curve in the chart. It fades at a much slower rate than the brown line. In fact, it crosses over the brown line at about 300 cycles, or about 10 months. In other words, after 10 months, it offers more capacity. This illustrates the tradeoff between voltage and longevity.

A smartphone maker who has implemented advanced intelligence on their battery (like Qnovo’s) will not suffer from this ailment. But if you suspect that your device does not have such intelligence, then you will do yourself a big favor by charging your battery to a maximum of 95% or even lower if you can.

Qualcomm announced this week their 4th generation Quick Charge™ technology to be available in their upcoming Snapdragon 835 chipset. Quick Charge™ 4 continues to build on making fast charging an integral part of modern smartphones and consumer devices. In this latest generation, Qualcomm adds a number of key features, in particular, higher efficiency in delivering the power from the wall socket to the device, more power available for charging faster, and better thermal management. I applaud the continued evolution of Qualcomm’s QC technology.

As fast charging becomes an entrenched technology in the mobile landscape, the emphasis on battery safety itself during fast charging begins to take priority. As I highlighted in this earlier post, fast charging done improperly causes irreparable damage to the battery causing a loss of capacity (mAh) or worse yet, battery safety problems. Combining fast charging with high-energy density cells, especially the new generation that is operating at 4.4V, is a recipe for potential disasters. This post is about what can go wrong when we mix fast charging with high-energy density batteries, but neglect to implement the necessary charging intelligence and the necessary controls around the battery.

First, let me clarify a few things.

Fast charging includes the realm of charging the battery at rates near or above 1C . At 1C, the battery charges to half-full from empty (0 to 50%) in 30 minutes. QC 4.0 is capable to going at twice that rate, or 2C. That is very fast.

High-energy density batteries are those with energy densities in excess of 600 Wh/l, with the most recent ones at or near 700 Wh/l. The newest generation of these batteries are almost universally operating at 4.4V. This earlier post explains the risks and perils of operating at this voltage.

The last point I want to clarify is that the common charging approaches, namely CCCV and step charging do NOT provide any intelligence or controls around charging. They are open-loop methods with no mechanism to gauge the state or health of the battery in order to make the proper adjustments and avoid the risks that I will highlight below.

The mix of fast charging and high-energy batteries makes a very volatile situation. This reminds me of fancy car commercials with the fine print warning at the bottom of the screen: “Professional drivers on a closed course. Do not attempt.” Fast charging high-energy batteries is rapidly approaching this realm of cautionary warnings. The consequences of neglecting such advice can be dire especially as smartphone fires are fresh in our collective memories.

So what can go wrong?

To begin with, lithium metal plating is a huge risk when one attempts to fast charge a 4.4V cell. We see lithium plating on most if not all cells from reputable battery suppliers when charged using CCCV or step charging. This is a serious problem if not mitigated with the proper battery intelligence. Left unchecked, lithium metal plating can lead to safety hazards and potential fires. What makes lithium metal plating even more hazardous is that it is not easy to detect its presence inside your smartphone. By the time it develops into a potential electrical short inside the battery, it is often too late. Therefore it is imperative that the intelligence in the battery management seeks to avoid its forming from the very beginning of the battery’s life in your smartphone.

A second serious hazard is excess swelling of the battery. Yes, the battery will physically grow thicker as it is repeatedly charged. It is nearly impossible to measure the thickness of the battery once it is embedded inside your smartphone. Clever estimates of the thickness without physically touching the battery belong to the category of advanced intelligent algorithms that are becoming increasingly necessary. You might say: so what, let the battery swell! Excessive swelling will most certainly break your display screen.

A third hazard relates to the battery’s behavior at high temperature. The electronics inside your device consume power and cause the smartphone to get hot. Those of you who have fast charging on your devices will attest to this fact. One misconception is that the battery itself heats up because of fast charging. That is not correct. The battery gets hot because of the heat generated by the electronics inside the smartphone. These temperatures can rise inside the smartphone to 40 °C, and in some many cases approaching 45 °C. These elevated temperatures accelerate the degradation of materials inside the battery especially at the elevated voltages. This leads to a rapid loss of charge capacity (your mAh drop very quickly) accompanied with excessive swelling of the battery. If you are an Uber driver with your smartphone fast charging on your dashboard on a hot summer day, this does not bode well for you.

These are only three examples of potential battery safety hazards associated with fast charging high-energy density cells using traditional charging methods…each one of them can lead to serious battery safety problems. That’s a good time to heed the warning in the car commercials. If you are not a professional, please do not attempt.

For the average reader, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, often abbreviated as EIS, is more than a mouthful. Understanding its utility can be relegated to the category of unresolved mysteries. Today’s post will shed some light and a little intuitive thinking on this powerful method.

The reader’s first question might be “why are you talking about EIS in a battery blog?” The answer is simple. EIS is the foremost standard tool in laboratories around the world to measure electrochemical processes and reactions. Electrochemistry, one of the most extensive branches in chemistry, is the study of chemical reactions that have an inherent relationship to electricity, i.e. they can either generate electricity or can be influenced by electricity. Yes, you guessed right, batteries are a prime example of electrochemistry. Another practical example of electrochemistry put to good use: the gold plating on your necklace or bracelet.

What does the name EIS imply? Electrochemical impedance is scientific jargon that refers to the electrical resistance of the device under study, in this case, the lithium-ion battery. In its most elemental form, impedance is voltage divided by current. For electrical engineers, it represents components such as resistors or capacitors. For other scientists, it represents the resistance the device exhibits against the flow of electricity.

Spectroscopy is the branch of science that deals with how a property changes with frequency. Hence, EIS is the methodology and science that seek to understand how impedance measurements change with frequency, and more particularly, how these changes are intimately tied to the underlying chemical reactions.

Why frequency? Frequency adds a lot more information about the nature of the chemical process that is taking place. In science, frequency plays a very important role. Take for example the difference between blue and red light. They are both made of photons, but differ in frequency. Medical MRI imaging depends on the frequency of the oscillation of the hydrogen atoms in our bodies. Distinguishing between different broadcast stations on the radio dial operates on similar principles. In other words, we use frequency to uniquely identify chemical or physical processes.

With this long introduction, let’s dive a little deeper into EIS as related to a lithium-ion battery. If you were to measure the impedance of a standard electrical resistor component — the kind of components you may find inside your smartphone — you will find that you will measure exactly the same impedance value whether you apply a low voltage or a high voltage, or whether you measure at low frequency or high frequency. In other words, for this resistor component, the value is independent of voltage (also known as bias) and frequency. Resistors are consequently easy components to understand.

That is NOT the case for a battery. Change the voltage or frequency and you will get a different value. In other words, the battery can look like a resistor in some circumstances, or like a capacitor in others, or some complex combinations of both. When we change the voltage of the battery, it now operates at a different “state of charge,” in other words, it will have a different amount of electrical charge stored in it. As I described in this earlier post on fuel-gauges, the terminal voltage of the battery is a direct proxy of the amount of electrical charge stored in the battery, which is the state of charge (or the percentage of battery remaining).

In contrast, changing the frequency relates to different electrochemical processes that occur inside the battery. Such electrochemical processes could relate to the diffusion of the electrical charge (in this case, the lithium ions) from one electrode to the other. One can imagine that the ions have to travel a certain distance and insert themselves in the “Swiss-cheese” matrix of the material. So intuitively, this feels like a slow process, and it is. It takes several seconds to even minutes for the lithium ion to go through this diffusion process — meaning that diffusion of ions is characterized by a low-frequency signature. A distinctly different electrochemical process is how lithium ions and electrons interact right at the surface of the electrode. This interaction involves electrons and ions over very short distances. Intuitively, one can see that this can be a very fast reaction, usually on the order of microseconds. Hence its signature contains high frequency signals.

All of this goes to say that the impedance value at a particular frequency is a “unique signature” for the underlying electrochemical process of interest to our study. And that is what makes EIS such a powerful tool. To the trained scientist, he or she can read the EIS measurement as a map of the various electrochemical processes and reactions that are taking place inside the battery without cutting it open or damaging it. It also provides tremendous insight into what can also go wrong inside the battery. Not all electrochemical processes are desirable. For example, the underlying process that causes lithium metal plating is highly undesirable and can be readily measured using its unique EIS signature.

So how is the measurement made? In the laboratory, the oft-expensive and bulky instrument applies a small electrical current at a well defined frequency to the battery, then measures the voltage. Divide the voltage by the current and you now have the impedance at this frequency. For example, apply 1 mA of current at a frequency of 100 Hz, you might measure 0.5 mV. Hence the impedance is 0.5mV/1mA = 0.5 ohms at 100 Hz. This, of course, does not take into account the complex value of the impedance but it is a simple illustration of the concept. “Complex” numbers are mathematical tools to show values that have both real and imaginary components. Don’t worry if you don’t understand them fully —the key thing is that an impedance measurement has two values to represent it.

A full EIS chart shows by convention the imaginary component of the impedance (vertical axis) vs. its real value (horizontal axis). The far left of the chart shows the measurements made at high frequencies, in particular highlighting what happens in the metal conductors inside the battery as well as what occurs at the surfaces of the electrodes. As we follow the purple dots and move towards the right, the frequency of the signature gradually decreases highlighting now a different set of electrochemical processes, in particular what happens at the insulating interface between the electrode and the electrolyte (also known as SEI layer). Ultimately, to the far right of the chart, the frequency is low and is unique to the diffusion effects of the lithium ions.

An EIS tool is present in every electrochemistry laboratory around the world. Young graduates in this discipline spend countless hours operating this tool. It is not a small instrument…it fits on a desk, may weigh several pounds, and costs several thousands of dollars. Now imagine how the world would look like if an EIS tool can somehow fit inside each and every smartphone!

State-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries, whether used in smartphones or electric vehicles, all rely on the same fundamental cell structure: two opposing electrodes with an intermediate insulating separator layer, with lithium ions shuffling between the two electrodes.

The positive electrode during charging, usually called the cathode, consists of a multi-metal oxide alloy material. Lithium-cobalt-oxide, or LCO, is by far the most common for consumer electronic applications. NCM, short for lithium nickel-cobalt-manganese oxide, also known as NMC, is gradually replacing other materials in energy storage and electric vehicle applications. LCO and NCM have a great property of storing lithium ions within their material matrix. Think of a porous swiss cheese: the lithium ions insert themselves between the atomic layers.

In contrast, the anode, or negative electrode during charging, is almost universally made of carbon graphite. Carbon historically was and continues to be the material of choice. It has a large capacity to store lithium ions within its crystalline matrix, much like the metal oxide cathode.

So how do manufacturers increase energy density? In some respects, the math is simple. In practice, it gets tricky.

Energy density equals total energy stored divided by volume. The total stored energy is dictated by the amount of active material, i.e., the available amount of metal oxide alloy as well as graphite that can physically store the lithium ions (i.e., the electric charge). So battery manufacturers resort to all types of design tricks to reduce the volume of inactive material, for example, reducing the thickness of the separator and metal connectors. Of course, there are limits with safety topping the list. To a large extent, this is what battery manufacturers did for the past 20 years — amounting largely to about a 5% increase annually in energy density.

But once this extra volume of inactive material is reduced to its bare minimum, increasing energy density gets tricky and challenging. This is the difficult wall that the battery industry is facing now. So what is next?

There are two potential paths forward:

1. Find a way to pack more ions (i.e., more electric charge) within the electrodes. This is the topic of much research to develop new materials capable of such feat. But any such breakthrough is still several years away from commercial deployment, leaving the second option to….

2. Increase the voltage. Since energy equals charge multiplied by voltage, increasing the voltage also raises the amount of energy (remember that energy and charge are related but are not commutable). This is the object of today’s post.

The battery industry raised the voltage a few years back from a maximum of 4.2 V to the present-day value of 4.35 V. This was responsible for adding approximately 4 to 5% to the energy density. A new crop of batteries is now beginning to operate at 4.4 V, adding an additional 4 to 5% to the energy density. But that does not come without some serious challenges. What are they?

First, there is the electrolyte. It is a gel-like solvent that imbibes the inside of the battery. Short of a better analogy, if ions are like fish, then the electrolyte is like water. It is the medium within which the lithium ions can travel between the two electrodes. As the voltage rises, it subjects the electrolyte to increasingly higher electric fields causing its early degradation and breakdown. So we are now seeing a new generation of electrolytes that can in principle withstand the higher voltage — albeit, we see in our lab testing that some of these electrolyte formulations are responsible for worse cycle life performance. This is a first example of the compromises that battery designers are battling.

Second, there is the structural integrity of the cathode. Let’s take LCO as an example. If we peer a little closer into the cathode material (see the figure below), we find a crystal structure with layers made of cobalt and oxygen atoms. When the battery is fully discharged, the lithium ions occupy the vacant space between these ordered layers. In fact, there is a proportion of lithium ions to cobalt and oxygen atoms: there is one lithium ion for every one cobalt and two oxygen atoms.

courtesy of visualization for electronic and structural analysis (VESTA)

As the battery is charged, the lithium ions leave the cathode to the anode vacating some of the space between the ordered layers of the LCO cathode. But not all the lithium ions can leave; if too many of them leave, then the crystal structure of the cathode collapses and the material changes its properties. This is not good. So only about half of the lithium ions are “permitted” to leave during charging. This “permission” is determined by, you guessed it, the voltage. Right about 4.5 V, the LCO crystal structure begins to deteriorate, so one can easily see that at 4.4 V, the battery is already getting too close to the cliff.

Lastly, there is lithium plating. High energy-density cells push the limit of the design and tolerances in order to reduce the amount of material that is not participating in the storage. One of the unintended consequences is an “imbalance” between the amount of cathode and anode materials. This creates an “excess” of lithium ions that then deposit as lithium metal, hence plating.

These three challenges illustrate the increasing difficulties that battery manufacturing must overcome to continue pushing the limits of energy density. As they make progress, however, compromises become the norm. Cycle life is often shortened. Long gone are the days of 1,000+ cycles without intelligent adaptive controls. Fast charging becomes questionable. In some cases, safety may be in doubt. And the underlying R&D effort costs a lot of money with expenses that are stretching the financial limits of battery manufacturers without the promise of immediate financial returns in a market that is demanding performance at a the lowest possible price.

It is great to be a battery scientist with plenty of great problems to work on…but then again, may be not.

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About the author

Nadim Maluf

I am a consumer. I am an engineer. I innovate. I am inspired by others. I am a student. I am a teacher. I am a CEO. I admire great people who make great products. And I love it best when I make a difference in the lives of others.